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The Lost Season 5 Finale, and Why It Sucked.

May 31, 2009 — toonstar

After watching it last night, I was upset. Not annoyed, but upset. Compared to the season finales of the last four years, this was just pathetic. It completely lacked the character drama that I love this show for; in fact it has been missing all season. The dynamics, the chemistry between the characters just is not working anymore. Benjamin Linus has become a walking sulking puppy, I miss his intelligence greatly. Locke’s new found confidence was slightly far fetched and aimless at times but it makes a little more sense now. I will not knock on that though, because this was just half of the finale. The whole Jacob/Esau battle that has suddenly appeared is a mystery and plot point for season six and could have interesting implications. What I do wish to knock upon ever so vicariously and viciously and violently and vehemently and… f*** this s***… What the hell is blowing up a nuclear bomb in such an amateur manner suppose to achieve?

What the hell is going on? What the f*** do they think is going to happen? Why the hell are they suddenly so bloody motivated to reset the time/space continuum? Let us ignore the fact how that makes no sense on about fifty different levels. No, actually let us not ignore that. It makes no sense on fifty different levels. I loved the time traveling setup of Lost; it worked really well and was started brilliantly in season four by the excellent Desmond/Daniel Faraday episode called The Constant. But this season’s The Variable just completely tarnished the acceptable physics the show delivered. We and the characters were made to believe the ‘Whatever happened, happened’ motto for the entire season and then suddenly in one episode it was all turned on its head with a completely infinitesimal and absurd explanation. It needed to be developed in a more fleshed out manner, but we never got that chance because Lost decided to deliver a really pointless character death.

Killing Daniel Faraday was a huge mistake, his conviction and explanation for detonating the nuclear explosive was necessary in developing this plot point. Such a critical issue and source of motivation for a lot of the other characters felt completely rushed and not even remotely believable. We as the viewers understand that Faraday knows the physics and conditions on the island far greater than anyone else, and we needed his presence in the finale for this nuclear situation to gauge any emotional value. His knowledge is far above that of our new found warrior-spirited Jack Sheppard. Faraday says one little thing to Jack about supposedly “fixing/resetting” everything and he believes it? Not even just believes it but Jack makes it the mission of his life out of nowhere to blow up a nuclear bomb; Faraday never explained himself or his fervor to carry out these actions. Yet Jack became a blind pilgrim in this belief of something a man, who he has not seen in three years by the way, said to him… about bending space and time by blowing up a nuclear bomb. Ridiculous, that is not Jack. It is as if the writers just threw away four years of character development. The motivation behind the actions of Jack and his crew makes absolutely no sense. Let us not forget for a moment Sayid’s random acceptance of the situation at hand as well, utterly absurd. Suddenly the resident torturer of the island is now very capable with plutonium cores and nuclear warheads as well. I must also raise issue with how homosexual Sayid looked for most of the episode, especially after his elaborate wet scene coming out of the waterfall and the flamboyant hair-tie-back action that followed. Oh and I loved the timeout Jack and Sawyer decided to take, all the while Sayid was lying in the back of a van bleeding to death. Clearly Dr. Jack Sheppard forgot that he was a doctor.

The action was incredibly silly as well, since when did Jack become a sharp shooter? Someone has been watching too much ‘24’ on their three years off the island. I swear the most believable thing in that episode could have been Jack Bauer appearing out of the energy pocket hole, revealing himself to be the smoke monster, Jacob and the island’s energy all in one. It got even worse when the whole gang decided to throw a hissy fit at the Swan station at the end, trained DHARMA guards with accurate rifles were shooting air while a blonde fertility doctor with a pistol was nailing head shots through a speeding van. Her accuracy seemed to infect the rest of the gang also as Miss Wonder Bucktooth was rolling around barrels to barrels picking of baddies in jumpsuits as if her name was… Miss Wonder Bucktooth. Absolutely preposterous this episode was I tell you, unacceptable.

One last quibble about this Jacob of ours, and a point about the structure of this episode in general as well. All the flashbacks of Jacob appearing in the lives of the people currently on the island were too convenient and misplaced. It was stupid seeing random useless tidbits of Jacob affecting the lives of these people. This should have been done in the flashbacks over the course of the season, we should have seen these events scattered out across a proper time line so that in this finale we actually find out that such and such events were in fact triggered by Jacob. This is how Lost has always developed its puzzles, putting pieces together… with Jacob it felt like a complete rush job and utter matter of invention just to show that Jacob went around and met all these people at some point in their lives. The flashback scenes carried absolutely no weight or consequence because of this. The time line of these flashbacks were confusing, entangled in between jumping from past to present with our current gang of characters.

In general, these episodes and season five in general felt rushed and sorely lacked emotional gravitas. Quite disappointing to be honest, I feel as if all the character connections have been completely lost, no pun intended. Lost was a show built upon the relationships and character conflicts, not these silly mysteries that seem to be derivates of some hallucinogenic run through of the Bible.

I do wish to commend the ever excellent Richard Alpert. He is the last saving grace of this show in my eyes, and a narrative through his eyes is well over due. A finale in his vein would have been much more sensible, much more emotional and would have definitely eased the introduction of Jacob. To be honest he’s one of the last characters with any kind of logical rationale left in him. Frank Lupidus, the poor guy is totally lost but I am quite interested to see what Ajira passengers/Jacob’s allies consider him a “candidate” for. Jacob allowing himself to be killed so easily signifies that the body he occupied is possibly just a vessel for his spirit, similar to what Esau has done with Locke, Jacob will do with Lupidus. Whatever the hell happened to Christian Sheppard and Claire? We were made to believe Locke was resurrected on the island just like Christian, but now we are presented with the fact that death is certainly the end of these characters. What makes Christian an exception, why was he nowhere to be seen? What the f*** is that prostitute of a b**** whore Sun doing asking the stupidest questions like a prostituting puppy b****? I thought Christian told Sun and Lupidus how they could meet their friends again, but from the way Sun was acting it was as if she had completely forgotten about her encounter with Christian. This goes back to my point about the episode being awfully structured and very much rushed. Christian should have been around in the finale, too many gaping plot and motivational holes occurred that made no sense on any bloody level. Before I end my discussion, special mention to Hurley, Miles and Desmond who are the last few people making any kind of cynical sense on this show yet nobody seems to listen to them.

As for the rest of the gang, Ben has become a delusional vagina, Jack thinks his first name is The Boss last name Bauer, Juliet is tapping a nuclear core with a rock trying to make it explode, Sawyer is in love, Sun is a whore, Kate is doing absolutely nothing with her life, Faraday is dead, Locke is dead, Jacob looks he belongs in Amsterdam, Esau is an awful character from Prison Break, Lupidus is Lost, Sun is a whore, Jin has become like crewman #5 since he started speaking English constantly stating the obvious and last but not least Bernard and Rose are about to start the Robinson Crusoe family on the island.

What the hell happened to Lost? Man, I miss Charlie.

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9 Responses to “The Lost Season 5 Finale, and Why It Sucked.”

I happen to take issue with your issues about the characters. Ben was threatened by his dead daughter. I would imagine he’s kind of afraid to come up with plans for usurping Locke’s position (as well as the fact that being Locke’s right-hand man could be reasonably favorable for him). Why does Jack want to destroy the bomb? Nigh on 300 people died with the crash. Several others died along the way. If one has the ability to prevent that, I would imagine they would exert some heavy effort to do so. This isn’t a new facet for Jack; this is the same old selfless shit he always has gone about doing. Juliet initially wanted to stop Jack from trying this; she could only think about the fact that almost everyone she’d known for the past few years could die with that explosion. Then she started to think about her sister. The misery that she was in for the first three years she was on the island got back to her. Then she came to the conclusion that Sawyer may leave her, and that would very well be the final straw. Oh, and explain how Sayid is stupid for wanting to detonate the bomb, please. It’s not like he was on the plane so he could see his love! No, no, it’s not like she was dead, and presumably would be alive if he’d never gotten to the island! Miles and Hurley aren’t the kind of guys who go for this action, and Jin, I imagine, is just waiting to be with his wife again. And how is Sun a whore?
And Christian has always been ‘Esau’. The body could have easily just fallen out of the coffin when the plane crashed. Or perhaps ‘Esau’ takes the bodies out of their resting place, but he didn’t have the ability to do so for Locke. Christian being ‘Esau’ explains why he tried to persuade Sun and Frank to help him, by saying that Locke could help them. They would obviously follow Locke in this case.

Hey Michael, good points. I can see what you’re saying and in that light it makes sense what you are pointing out. I was just upset because I don’t think, no correction… I didn’t feel that it was a believable turn of events (the nuclear side of things). The physics and psychology behind their motives was so rushed and completely unexplained! Faraday honestly spoke to Jack for two minutes, and just like that the principle of the show for the past two seasons was flipped on its head. It lost all emotional value on me, and without Faraday it entered the realm of implausibility considering that Faraday is the voice of reason on Lost. In the moment of it, I was annoyed and disappointed in the execution of this story line. You know everything before has been a slow buildup and a bang in your face reveal to some fantastic mysteries, this just came out of left field in my opinion.

I quite like the Esau/Jacob storyline, I am very curious to see it develop. I disagree with Christian being Esau however, if Esau needed one vessel to kill to Jacob then he would not bounce around from body to body in trying to achieve his objective. It wouldn’t make sense, don’t you think? Especially considering that the “Esau Locke” was alive and well on the small island, whilst Sun and Lupidus encountered Christian at the barracks. Personally I think it would be a huge plot plug to assume that Christian’s body just fell out of the plane, his casket was found in good shape… I still feel Christian is some force for something. I am very curious to see what Lupidus is a “cadidate” for. Locke Vs. Lupidus in season six!

My frustrations are from the execution of this episode, the action was silly and over the top. And it completely lacked the emotional weight from the last four season finales. I expected better, I expected more… I wanted Richard, I want Christian… I felt Jacob’s introduction was severely rushed. I just feel like this could have been a lot better, and I really do miss Charlie. Season Three finale was one of the finest pieces of television ever made.

Exactly… Faraday has been the voice of reason, and that’s why Jack was willing to believe him. Locke’s death (Jack having a hand in the ‘suicide’) severely humbled Jack, to the point of suicide, so Jack began to believe in destiny, and, with Faraday, all the pieces seemed to fit exactly for him. If you’re questioning why Faraday was so set on changing the past, think about it. Charlotte was probably a kind of caretaker to him on the freighter (as implied in Eggtown), and he probably felt a level of reliance on her. So much so that when she died, he felt guilt and an enormous amount of pain. He was obviously able to handle it well enough to do some work in Ann Arbor, but when he discovered that Jack and co. inexplicably made it to the 70’s, he came to delusional conclusions about changing the past. It seemed extraordinarily possible to him that the past could be changed. Remember how moved he was in the Variable by the crash? That also played a factor.
And I think Christian is ‘Esau’ because, if you look at the timeline properly, Locke comes to life almost the moment after Christian talks to Sun and Frank. Plus it would work with Christian’s actions earlier in the series (following his death)
And I can understand why it would feel rushed to somebody who doesn’t accept the motivations given for the characters, but, to me anyway, it wasn’t rushed.

I still disagree with your Esau-Christian theory, if you consider it like that then what’s the motivation behind Claire abandoning her baby for Christian if he is not her real father? I am sure we still don’t know the bigger picture behind what happened there, time will tell.

I’ll be going through the season again when it comes out on Blu-Ray, Lost is always phenomenal when you don’t have to wait a week or so between each episode. I am sure I will reconsider a few of my harsh opinions, but as a whole I felt disappointed. We shall see.

Do you agree though that Jacob was poorly executed? The flashbacks at least, they felt too conveniently invented and really didn’t have a greater meaning or any significant emotional value. Let me compare Jacob’s introduction to Elle’s… look at how small yet pivotal entrance they gave her in season 3. And then little hints to her importance came in tids and bits with things like the picture with Desmond’s priest. Hints that she could be Daniel’s mother, and then within a few episodes she become one of the most powerful characters on the show. It would have been great to see Jacob planted in flashbacks, important flashbacks that shaped the lives of our protagonists, over the past season or two. Then slowly WE start putting the pieces together and notice the significance of this character, and then its a BANG moment when you realise… that man is Jacob. Not some random hobo on the beach.

I wish I enjoyed the finale, I’m not an angst hater of the show or anything. Complete opposite in fact, this has been my number one show for the past 5 years… after seeing Fringe finale and Lost finale back to back, my heart is greatly leaning towards Fringe now though. I really do hope I reconsider my opinions when I go through season five again come November/December.

Well, truth be told, I think they planned to do with Abaddon what they ultimately did with Jacob. Despite this, Lance Reddick was on Fringe, and they couldn’t keep him with the show, so, for the sake of the show, they had to introduce Jacob in the finale, as including those flashes anywhere else in the season would be disconnected from the rest of the show.

Haha thanks for the comment Yasser. I’m not in a rush to know everything, and i am not upset at the direction the show is going either. Its just the execution of the show has become really poor, there is little to no character drama or rivalries anymore. And i don’t count that love square between Jack Kate Sawyer and Juliet anything emotionally significant because we all know how its going to end. It was cool while it was Kate Sawyer Jack, there was real conflict there. Anyway point is, the characters on Lost have lost their drama. And to be honest I think that was 10 times greater than all the sci-fi mysteries.